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Line 7: − Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933 to lead a coalition government at the request of [[President]] [[Paul von Hindenburg]], and almost immediately he made moves to consolidate power to himself and the Nazi Party, as well as restrict or eliminate political opposition. Jewish businesses began feeling the effects of a boycott as soon as it began on April 1, followed by the dismissal of Jewish civil service workers, judges, and university professors a week later. On May 10, some ten days after laws were enacted which prevented Jewish children from attending public schools except by quota, thousands of university students and professors stormed bookstores and libraries to remove books they deemed “un-Germanic” and opposed to Nazi teachings, throwing them into public bonfires. The [[Nuremberg Laws]] were enacted in 1935, which revoked German citizenship from Jews as well as declaring the marriage between a Jew and a [[German]] illegal. By 1938, the political and economic foundations of German Jewry were completely decimated.+ + + − + − + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Line 22:
Line 61: − ==World War II== − When World War II began in the fall of 1939, Jews in Germany were completely marginalized. They could not own property, go to a park, associate with Germans, enter a library or museum, work in any professional field or engage in business, nor could their children attend public schools. Public transportation would be forbidden by 1941, and the wearing of the yellow Star of David badge on their clothing was mandatory. They were also, prior to September 1, forced to migrate from countries and territories which had come under Hitler’s wing (the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland), with many being deported to Poland. By September 21, Poland was now the “General Government” protectorate under former lawyer [[Hans Frank]], and on that day Heydrich ordered the establishment of ''Judenrates'' (Jewish councils) which comprised 24 men - political leaders and rabbis – and whose personal responsibility was to carry out, to the letter, all German orders. This would include supplying people for work details, usually mundane things like digging ditches to amuse their Nazi overlords. Later, they were made to be responsible for supplying thousands of people a day for the “work” camps of [[Treblinka]], [[Sobibor]], [[Belzec]], and new one under construction near the town of Oswiecim, which the Germans called [[Auschwitz]]. − Thousands, nearly thirty percent of the total population of Warsaw, were crammed into just over 2 percent of the city’s total land area, a density of 200,000 people per square mile. Naturally disease and malnutrition would take its toll, but for the German overlords this was a minor inconvenience. The ghetto was a temporary place to hold all of Europe’s Jews until a final solution was determined, and when the Nazis invaded their former ally, the Soviet Union, in June 1941, the killing began in earnest.+
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After years of struggling to push their ideology into the masses through browbeatings and violence, the Nazi Party in Germany came to power in 1933, with [[Adolf Hitler]] as Chancellor, his ideology firmly entrenched within the party, and in the pages of his ''Mein Kampf'', a semi-biographical work containing his rambling political philosophy. In its pages Hitler expounded on the idea that the Aryan race, of which he was a part, was the so-called “master race”, and had a moral right and duty to subjugate the world; in the way stood the ''untermenschen'' (“sub-humans”), which, according to the Nazis, were meant to serve the master race as slaves. At the very bottom were the Jews, who were depicted as an evil race bent on world domination.
After years of struggling to push their ideology into the masses through browbeatings and violence, the Nazi Party in Germany came to power in 1933, with [[Adolf Hitler]] as Chancellor, his ideology firmly entrenched within the party, and in the pages of his ''Mein Kampf'', a semi-biographical work containing his rambling political philosophy. In its pages Hitler expounded on the idea that the Aryan race, of which he was a part, was the so-called “master race”, and had a moral right and duty to subjugate the world; in the way stood the ''untermenschen'' (“sub-humans”), which, according to the Nazis, were meant to serve the master race as slaves. At the very bottom were the Jews, who were depicted as an evil race bent on world domination.
The [[Nazis]] violently hated all the Jews and everything they stood for. They worked relentlessly toward the goal of removing all possible Jewish influences. Starting in the 1920s (when they were a small party) with a violently anti-Semitic rhetoric that blamed Jews for all the problems of Germany and the modern world, the Nazis defined Jews as a permanent “race” that would never change and could never be improved. The Nazis also strongly disliked Christianity as being too Jewish. Their goal was to return to a pre-Christian, all-Aryan (imaginary) world.
===Stage 2: 1933-38===
The second stage of Nazi policy concerning Jews, from 1933 to–1938, when Hitler was dictator in a peacetime Germany, involved the removal of Jews from all public office. The Nazis encouraged the Jews to leave and half of the Jewish population in Germany did so (including famous scientist [[Albert Einstein]] and the teenaged [[Henry Kissinger]]). The Nazis opened Dachau and other “concentration camps” to punish thousands of their political enemies—including many Jews. About 1,000 Jews were murdered in concentration camps inside Germany before 1939; these were distinct from the killing camps that were opened in 1942 in Poland.
==Crystal Night==
Jewish businesses began feeling the effects of a boycott that began on April 1, 1933, followed by the dismissal of Jewish civil service workers, judges, and university professors a week later. On May 10, some ten days after laws were enacted which prevented Jewish children from attending public schools except by quota, thousands of university students and professors stormed bookstores and libraries to remove books they deemed “un-Germanic” and opposed to Nazi teachings, throwing them into public bonfires. The [[Nuremberg Laws]] were enacted in 1935, which revoked German citizenship from Jews as well as declaring the marriage between a Jew and a [[German]] illegal. By 1938, the political and economic foundations of German Jewry were completely decimated.
On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a German Jew living in [[Paris]] and upset over his family’s forced deportation to [[Poland]], shot the third secretary (Ernst vom Rath) to the German ambassador in [[France]], who died two days later. His assassination touched off a wave of riots on November 9, seemingly at the behest of the Nazi minister of propaganda, [[Joseph Goebbels]], but this was expanded and organized better with the issuing of orders by the head of the S.S., [[Reinhard Heydrich]], later that evening, who specified that S.S. and S.A. units in various cities would march out with sledgehammers against Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues - but in civilian clothes only (to symbolize the “righteous” anger of the German people). Business could not be looted, as the property inside was deemed property of the state; Jewish property near German shops and homes could not be burned, but smashed; and many Jewish males, particularly the wealthy, were subject to arrest. Over 35,000 men were arrested that night, and according to figures released by Heydrich the total number of arrests exceeded 100,000; 815 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 191 Synagogues were destroyed or demolished, and over 2,000 were dead. By the end of the week local jails as well as the new [[Buchenwald]] and [[Dachau]] concentration camps were quickly filled. To further add insult to injury, the Jews were declared responsible for the damages done to their property and ordered to pay the staggering sum of one billion Reichmarks.
===Stage 3: 1938-41===
Stage three, from 1938– for 1941, involved increasingly severe and humiliating restrictions for Jews. “Kristallnacht” in November 1938 was a systematic violent attack on all synagogues. World public opinion grew hostile to the Nazi actions, who ; they responded by supporting pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic political movements in France and other countries, including the “German-American Bund.” After invading Poland in 1939, the Nazis forced two million Jews into a few ghettoes with below-starvation food allotments.
====Crystal Night====
On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a German Jew living in Paris and upset over his family’s forced deportation to Poland, shot the third secretary (Ernst vom Rath) to the German ambassador in France, who died two days later. His assassination touched off a wave of riots on November 9, seemingly at the behest of the Nazi minister of propaganda, [[Joseph Goebbels]], but this was expanded and organized better with the issuing of orders by the head of the S.S., [[Reinhard Heydrich]], later that evening, who specified that S.S. and S.A. units in various cities would march out with sledgehammers against Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues - but in civilian clothes only (to symbolize the “righteous” anger of the German people). Business could not be looted, as the property inside was deemed property of the state; Jewish property near German shops and homes could not be burned, but smashed; and many Jewish males, particularly the wealthy, were subject to arrest. Over 35,000 men were arrested that night, and according to figures released by Heydrich the total number of arrests exceeded 100,000; 815 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 191 Synagogues were destroyed or demolished, and over 2,000 were dead. By the end of the week local jails as well as the new [[Buchenwald]] and [[Dachau]] concentration camps were quickly filled. To further add insult to injury, the Jews were declared responsible for the damages done to their property and ordered to pay the staggering sum of one billion Reichmarks.
The sidewalks were littered with shards of the expensive storefront glass that was preferred for shops in Germany, which was called ''Kristallglas'' for its high-quality. The amount of glass left behind gave the incident its name: ''Kristallnacht'' (“Crystal Night”), or the Night of Broken Glass.
The sidewalks were littered with shards of the expensive storefront glass that was preferred for shops in Germany, which was called ''Kristallglas'' for its high-quality. The amount of glass left behind gave the incident its name: ''Kristallnacht'' (“Crystal Night”), or the Night of Broken Glass.
====World War II: 19339-41===
When World War II began in the fall of 1939, Jews in Germany were completely marginalized. They could not own property, go to a park, associate with Germans, enter a library or museum, work in any professional field or engage in business, nor could their children attend public schools. Public transportation was forbidden them in 1941, and the wearing of the yellow Star of David badge on their clothing became
mandatory. They were also, prior to September 1, forced to migrate from countries and territories which had come under Hitler’s wing (the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland), with many being deported to Poland. By September 21, Poland was now the “General Government” protectorate under former lawyer [[Hans Frank]], and on that day Heydrich ordered the establishment of ''Judenrates'' (Jewish councils) which comprised 24 men - political leaders and rabbis – and whose personal responsibility was to carry out, to the letter, all German orders. This would include supplying people for work details, usually mundane things like digging ditches to amuse their Nazi overlords. Later, they were made to be responsible for supplying thousands of people a day for the “work” camps of [[Treblinka]], [[Sobibor]], [[Belzec]], and new one under construction near the town of Oswiecim, which the Germans called [[Auschwitz]].
Thousands, nearly 30% of the total population of Warsaw, were crammed into just over 2 percent of the city’s total land area, a density of 200,000 people per square mile. Naturally disease and malnutrition would take its toll, but for the German overlords this was a minor inconvenience. The ghetto was a temporary place to hold all of Europe’s Jews until a final solution was determined, and when the Nazis attacked its ally, the Soviet Union, in June 1941, the killing began in earnest.
===Stage 4: 1941-42===
Stage 4 began when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Special units of the SS, the Security Police, and the Security Service (Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Einsatz- and Sonderkommandos) not only massacred large numbers of Jews, but routinely included handicapped persons in open-air mass shootings. Seven of the “Einsatzgruppen” rounded up and shot Polish Catholic priests, intellectuals, and political leaders. Another five units (with 3,000 men) followed the Red Army and executed Communist commissars and partisans, and about 600,000 Russian Jews.
===Stage 5: 1942-44===
Stage 5 began at The [[Wannsee Conference]] in January 1942 began stage five of Nazi power; it was then that when top Nazis decided on a “Final Solution” —to round up and secretly execute all the Jews of Europe. Killing centers were opened in Poland, and thousands of trainloads of Jews were transported there. and Jews were gassed immediately upon arrival.cmc3 Over three million Jews (and numbers of gypsies and other hated groups) were murdered, mostly in 1942–43.
===Stage 6: 1944-45===
Stage 6 arrived when the Soviet armies overran the Polish camps in 1944–45 and, liberated the survivors. In all, six million Jews were murdered; most of the 300,000 survivors emigrated to the United States or Israel.
==The people involved==
Analytically, the people involved in the Holocaust can be divided into the following groups follows.
===Victims===
Millions were victimized by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. The Jews were always the principal targets;. However, the Nazis also systematically hunted down and murdered the Roma people (“Gypsies”). They also targeted special enemies, including Communist activists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. The last group was the target of euthanasia programs carried out in German hospitals in 1939–1941., and These programs were stopped when German Christian leaders mobilized public opinion against them.
===Perpetrators===
Under the guidance of an all-powerful führer (Hitler), the Nazis believed fervently in force, violence, and terror as their best weapons. The most fanatical Nazis joined the [[SS]], which carried out most of the executions. The Final Solution was directed by [[Heinrich Himmler]], commander of the SS and Minister of the Interior. He was captured in 1945 and committed suicide before his war crimes trial began. His top aide was [[Reinhard Heydrich]], head of the Gestapo and, after 1939, of all the secret police agencies grouped into the RSHA; he was assassinated by Czech commandos with British help in 1942. [[Adolph Eichmann]] was the senior SS bureaucrat in charge of handling deportation and transportation. However, regular German army police units also systematically killed large numbers of civilians and POWs on the Eastern Front. After the war, West Germany recognized its guilt and made large financial payments to Israel., but However Communist East Germany refused to do the same.
===Bystanders===
In recent years much controversy has arisen over when President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] learned what about the Nazis, and what he did or did not do. Switzerland was neutral and accepted in some refugees, but it also made large profits by trading and banking with Germany;, and was in the 1990s the Swiss were forced in the 1990s to make reparation payments.
===Collaborators===
In rounding up Jews the Nazis sometimes had the enthusiastic cooperation of pro-Nazi governments (as in France and Slovakia). A few countries, including Italy and Hungary, tried to stall the Nazis, but the Germans took power directly and seized the Jews. Only Bulgaria and Denmark were largely successful in protecting their Jews.
===Resisters===
Resistance took many forms, from individual acts to hundreds of examples of organized, armed resistance. The most famous episode was the month-long uprising of 60,000 remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943. At the Sobibor death camp, an uprising in October 1943 allowed 600 prisoners to escape.
===Rescuers===
Rescuers hid potential victims as best they could; the tragic story of [[Anne Frank]] is the most famous. The Danish people managed to ferry their entire Jewish population to neutral Sweden in one night, under the noses of the Nazis. The pope helped protect some Italian Jews; it is still being debated whether or not he could have done much more. The most famous rescuer was Oskar Schindler; —“Schindler’s List” the movie is a tells the true story about of how he saved 1,100 Jews from the Nazis by setting up factories that produced defective munitions.<ref> For further information, see [http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/schindlers-list.html] </ref>.
===Liberators===
The Allies liberated the concentration camps in 1945, —but could they have the question remains whether they could have bombed the camps or otherwise stopped the Final Solution.? The main war criminals were tried at the International War Crimes Tribunals at Nuremburg in 1945–1947, and at smaller trials throughout Europe. The Holocaust was mentioned at the trials, but the major allegation against defendants was the systematic planning of an unjust war. The Far East War Crimes Trials were held from 1946 to 1948, and resulted in the conviction of 25 Japanese generals and high officials accused of crimes against peace. Over 2,000 local and regional trials convicted 4,000 Japanese officers accused of mistreating prisoners and civilians.
===Survivors===
The survivors of the Final Solution were very quiet about their experiences until about 1961, when Adolph Eichmann was captured in South America by Israel, tried in Jerusalem, and executed. Since then the Holocaust has become recognized as the most horrible episode of the twentieth20th century, and it has been analyzed in numerous with many books, courses, museums, and movies. The most important museums are the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
==Non-Jewish victims==
==Non-Jewish victims==
Following the outbreak of World War II in [[Poland]], the Nazis killed Polish intelligentsia in territories under their control, politicians, priests, and anyone else deemed part of a Polish leadership; the remainder were deemed slaves to serve their new masters; many were forced to perform hard labor, while many of the children who happened to look Aryan were kidnapped and raised as Germans in German households.
Following the outbreak of World War II in [[Poland]], the Nazis killed Polish intelligentsia in territories under their control, politicians, priests, and anyone else deemed part of a Polish leadership; the remainder were deemed slaves to serve their new masters; many were forced to perform hard labor, while many of the children who happened to look Aryan were kidnapped and raised as Germans in German households.
[[Image:Goeth.jpg|right|150px|right|thumb|Amon Goeth, commandant of the Plazow concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. A sadistic man, his recreation was to target and kill individual Jews in the camp with a hunting rifle from the balcony of his villa.]]
[[Image:Goeth.jpg|right|150px|right|thumb|Amon Goeth, commandant of the Plazow concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. A sadistic man, his recreation was to target and kill individual Jews in the camp with a hunting rifle from the balcony of his villa.]]
====The Einsatzgruppen====
====The Einsatzgruppen====